ILMC: BMW Zhuhai qualifying report

BMW achieves best ILMC qualifying result to date in Zhuhai.
BMW Team Schnitzer had a successful qualifying session for the third and
final round of the 2010 Intercontinental Le Mans Cup. In Zhuhai, JÃ¶rg Muller
set his best time of 1:36.166 ...

BMW achieves best ILMC qualifying result to date in Zhuhai.

BMW Team Schnitzer had a successful qualifying session for the third and
final round of the 2010 Intercontinental Le Mans Cup. In Zhuhai, Jörg Muller
set his best time of 1:36.166 minutes, and secured third on the LMGT2 grid
for himself and his team-mate, Dirk Werner.

Ferrari's Gianmaria Bruni claimed pole position with a time of 1:35.810
minutes. For the BMW M3 GT2 this is the best qualifying result in its
Intercontinental Le Mans Cup debut season. Conditions at the 4.319-kilometre
"Zhuhai International Circuit", however, were far from easy. After it rained
heavily on Friday, and qualifying day also started with a wet practice
session in the morning. Just in time for the start of the 20-minute
qualifying sprint, the rain stopped and the track started to dry out.

Muller completed his two outings on cut slick tyres, crossing the line after
setting his fastest lap just ten seconds before the chequered flag came out.
The Zhuhai 1,000-kilometre race will get underway on Sunday at 12:00hrs
local time (04:00hrs GMT).

Charly Lamm (Team Manager): "Obviously we are satisfied with the best
qualifying result to date with the BMW M3 GT2 in this specification. The car
worked very well, and Jörg Muller coped superbly with the difficult
conditions out there. China is a new and interesting experience for all of
us. The circuit's infrastructure is good, and the same goes for our grid
position. Therefore we can now start our preparations for Sunday's 1,000
kilometres full of confidence,"

Jörg Muller (Car Number 78): "We are happy with this result. In wet
conditions we struggled a bit, so the drying track in qualifying played into
our hands. Dunlop's cut slicks worked fine, and in the end we managed to
make it into the top three. However, conditions were difficult today. Right
in the middle of the session it started raining slightly again, so you never
knew how much water there was in the different sections of the track. But
all went well, and the gap to the front-runners is quite okay. I'm hoping
for a good result in tomorrow's race."